It's important to understand the context behind this, Rishi Sunak went to one of the top private schools in the country, he went on to study PPE, went to Goldman and then was parachuted in to a safe tory seat, he then took on various positions at the treasury before becoming Chancellor and then PM.
All this is to say- Rishi Sunak has literally never in his life had any contact at all with state maths education in this country. This is just one of those weird idiosyncrasies of a guy who has a really strong opinion that maths is important having done absolutely nothing to study the issue.
So what we end up with is a policy where Rishi Sunak plans to make maths education better... whilst massively cutting school budgets. Teachers unions are all voting to strike because he tried to negotiate a pay deal with them that involved them getting a pay rise that had to be funded out of existing school budgets (ie, you can have a pay rise, but it's going to mean you have to turn the central heating off in your schools and stop mending the holes in the roofs). It's just a completely out of touch approach. This new initiative won't touch the sides against the damage childrens eduction will take due to the failure to pay teachers properly.
All this is to say- Rishi Sunak has literally never in his life had any contact at all with state maths education in this country. This is just one of those weird idiosyncrasies of a guy who has a really strong opinion that maths is important having done absolutely nothing to study the issue.
So what we end up with is a policy where Rishi Sunak plans to make maths education better... whilst massively cutting school budgets. Teachers unions are all voting to strike because he tried to negotiate a pay deal with them that involved them getting a pay rise that had to be funded out of existing school budgets (ie, you can have a pay rise, but it's going to mean you have to turn the central heating off in your schools and stop mending the holes in the roofs). It's just a completely out of touch approach. This new initiative won't touch the sides against the damage childrens eduction will take due to the failure to pay teachers properly.